In August 2015, the Department issued a new Section 8 Renewal Policy Guide. Section 9-23 of the new Guide provided instructions for comparing the median rents as derived by the appraiser in a rent comparability study (RCS) with Census Bureau estimates of the median rents in the project’s zip code. Should the rents in the owner’s study exceed 140 percent of the median zip code rents, HUD will secure a third party RCS for comparison purposes. When the Department issued the Guide, they also published the list of median zip code rents.

On February 8, 2016, HUD released the new median zip code rents. The new numbers are effective for any RCS signed by the appraiser on or after February 11, 2016.  

The new Median Rent by Zip Code Table can be found here.  The file has two worksheets, one listing the numbers and one providing instructions should there not be a number in the cell for that zip code. Instructions for comparing the numbers and determining the final rent is found in Section 9-23 of the new Guide.